The New York Public Library

Do Not Be Afraid of Bubbles in Your Kimchi

2013-05-01T12:47:15-04:00

An Interview with Lauryn Chun
founder of Mother-in-Law's Kimchi and author of The Kimchi Cookbook: 60 Traditional and Modern Ways to Make and Eat Kimchi

Kimchi, the traditional fermented Korean side dish, can be enjoyed many ways. There are those who like their kimchi hot and spicy, while others enjoy a milder flavor. Some may appreciate a bit of seafood in their bowl, while others prefer a purely vegetarian version. Then there's fermentation, which for a few people might take years, but for others might not be used at all. Yet, no matter how you slice it, cook it, ferment it or eat it, the centuries-old delicacy is well-loved.

Growing up in a Korean household, Lauryn Chun was used to having gallons of kimchi in the refrigerator or watching kimchi bubbling in the sink. She learned about the traditional food from the hands of her maternal grandmother and her mother, the owner of Jang Mo Jip ("Mother-in-Law's House") in Garden Grove, California. Years later, Lauryn founded Mother-in-Law's Kimchi (MILKimchi), a labor of love created to share with others her life-long experience with the dish, as well as honor her Korean heritage. Over time she has explored the many varieties of kimchi: mild, hot and spicy, tangy and tart, seafood-laden, Basque-inspired and more. Her new book, The Kimchi Cookbook: 60 Traditional and Modern Ways to Make and Eat Kimchi includes the best recipes from this exploration. In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, The New York Public Library is thrilled to welcome Lauryn Chun to the iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on May 8th for an evening (complete with cooking demonstration) with writer Ben Ryder-Howe. For a sneak peek about what will be discussed, Lauryn answered a few questions for NYPL's eager readers at the Huffington Post.

1. What was tasting and making your first kimchi like?
I recall making my first batch with excitement and anticipation. Once I determined that I wanted to launch my own kimchi business, I trained myself by watching and learning from my mother and ajumas (reverent term for ladies in Korean) who still cook at my mother's 25 year old Korean restaurant in California, kind of a crash course or boot camp for kimchi making. I had brined the cabbage and mixed in the seasoning to make about a 100 lb batch on my own for the annual Pickle Day Festival held in the Lower East Side of NYC in fall of 2009 in my commercial kitchen. As I was mixing the ingredients together and seeing the visuals of red chile paste seasoning, the fresh yet pungent smell of garlic and ginger, it gave me such a sense of comfort and reverence for food of my ancestors and history. Most of all, it captured a vivid smell and memory of my childhood watching my maternal grandmother make kimchi during Kimjang, the annual fall cabbage harvest of 'putting up' kimchi in preparation for the winter season. In an unexpected way, the process of making that first commercial batch of kimchi on my own as an adult brought back a complete cycle of my identity as an American and Korean where the two seemingly different cultures came together meaningfully.

2. Do you have a favorite kimchi style?
It is probably most customary to grow up eating the style of kimchi that their mom or grandmother makes, Koreans remain loyal to this tradition. I have met Korean customers at kimchi tastings who are afraid to 'betray' their mom's kimchi by even tasting a bite of ours.

My favorite kimchi style is our own at Mother-in-Law's Kimchi which I described as Basque style (mixture of regional styles like the areas in France/Spain where I love the cooking) where seafood and rich flavors are bold, focused flavors with a balanced fermented umami notes. The kimchi recipe is actually a variation of the recipe which has evolved from our family and the ladies who have been cooking there for the past 25 years. I prefer a bold, pungent, seafood style of the South or clean flavors of the North where less seafood is used. There's also the deliciousness of white (or mild) kimchi made without chile flakes and some of the oldest kimchi recipes before Korea had any access to chile flakes in 17th century. I love the tangy, crisp, deep flavors of fermentation that you get fermenting vegetables on their own. Kimchi does not have to spicy or with cabbage to be delicious.

3. Why did you write this book?
I wrote this cookbook because I wanted to share the full scope and tradition of kimchi rooted in seasons and dispel many misconceptions about kimchi. Kimchi is essentially an agrarian tradition simply as a way to preserve vegetables. I also wanted to document kimchi making in English and give access to those interested in preserving the fermented food tradition and share the health benefits of eating a raw, fermented foods in their daily lives. I want to show how delicious and economical it is to add flavor and vegetable in our diets. It is also a personal homage to my own past and heritage -- a cross cultural journey in search of the meaning of food and finding my voice.

4. Since the publication, did you notice more people making kimchi?
Yes, most definitely, I didn't realize how many people wanted to learn more about kimchi making. With our DIY Homemade Kimchi Kits, we've been asking more people to send us pictures and success with kimchi. Many have said they didn't realize how accessible and easy it was to make kimchi at home. After all, the definition of kimchi literally comes from the root words 'salted vegetables.'

5. What about fermented food? Why is that so popular these days?
Fermented food is the most basic and ancient way that humans preserved food (such as wine, cheese, sauerkraut, soy sauce, soy bean paste, etc.). We we have become a highly evolved society, our connection to our food is going more basic in our need to understand simplicity and nuture our food system from an anti-industrialized, process food society. I think it makes sense as chefs and food trend is going towards getting back to ancient, time honored food traditions that is deep rooted in nature (foraging) and fermentation (living bacteria).

As more Americans are becoming more conscious about the food system and I wanted to share a true understanding of how healthful and delicious choices of eating fermented foods can be empowering. Growing up in a Korean household, having gallons of kimchi in the refrigerator or watching bubbling kimchi in the sink was a natural occurrence for me. I want to be able have more Americans have less fear and more informed relationship with eating vegetables and raw foods that have such good beneficial bacteria for our healthy digestive system and developing healthy immune systems for children.

6. Any secret cooking tips in making and/or preserving kimchi?
I think the best way to describe kimchi and its taste is such a personal one and vast similar to making wines. There should be a balance of flavors (seasonings, spicy) not too salty, spicy and texture which should be tangy and have a pleasant finish. A well crafted kimchi will taste better with age and time like a bottle of fine red wine.

If you are aging kimchi, store them in smaller (pint size) jars with lids store in back of the refrigerated for months and up to years. Hang out with your kimchi and taste it at different times as you will note how the flavors and taste keep changing with time. Do not be afraid of the bubbles in your kimchi and be aware of the pressure build up inside the lids as kimchi ferments and releases its gases, it's a unique by product of raw fermentation and the bubbles give the taste of tanginess as it is essentially making its own vinegar to preserve the safe beneficial bacteria.

When cooking with kimchi, always use the most 'aged' (more than two months) tangy kimchi you have on hand to get the most developed kimchi flavors that are so delicious and subtle when you add to recipes and cook with it. It's a bit like using a pickled vinegar on your foods and versatile in its ability to complement a wide range of dishes from fatty proteins like meat, cheese and eggs to mild tofu and grains.

The Story of the Seven Sisters: Women's Magazines at NYPL

2013-03-31T15:55:17-04:00

by Raymond Pun
Librarian in NYPL's DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Division

In 1883, Ladies' Home Journal was founded as a supplement to Tribune and Farmer (1879), a four page-weekly magazine that covered flower arrangement and childcare tips under Cyrus Curtis and his wife Louisa Knapp.

The Seven Sisters: Many have heard of them without even realizing it. They were the quintessential women's magazines of the 19th and 20th centuries. Before Cosmo or Real Simple - before even today's most popular blogs, such as CarolinesMode or HelloGiggles - there was Ladies Home Journal and Better Homes and Gardens, to name just two. In honor of the last day of Women's History Month, The New York Public Library's DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Division introduces the magazines that began it all.

The Seven Sisters included:
Better Homes and Gardens (started in 1922)
Family Circle (started in 1932)
Good Housekeeping (started in1885)
McCall's (started in 1873; was called Rosie in 2002 and eventually ceased publication)
Ladies' Home Journal (started in1873)
Redbook (started in1903)
Woman's Day (started in 1937)

The Seven Sisters devoted their monthly and general interest articles and columns toward improving the lives of the suburban housewife. Good Housekeeping was aimed toward women of affluent backgrounds and Better Homes and Gardens inspired women with ideas on home economics and leisurely activities. During the 1960s, the sisters had among the highest circulation according to the statistics conducted by The Association of Magazine Media.

Today, the modern urban reader might find the content of these past magazines to be vastly different in comparison to their contemporary city lives. However, for many - perusing the pages of these time-worn publications can provide an escape to a simpler time, not to mention the opportunity to learn about life in our grandparent's time and of course, there's always the chance of landing on that time-tested tip for removing a coffee stain from your almond sofa

Today, the Seven Sisters are still largely part of our society, having changed and adapted to suit the readers they enticed generations ago. (Although, McCall's ceased publication in 2002) Owned by Meredith and Hearst Corporations, this group of magazines are expanding their content beyond the traditions of motherhood or family values and incorporating the daily experiences of all kinds of women today. The images of their covers reveal the new trends of readerships and interests among women in the 21st century.

Check them out at NYPL's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building: peruse the vintage covers and read about the "dos and don'ts" for the 1890's housewife or party planning in the 1950s. We have all the sisters since they first appeared in the magazine stand.

Surprising $10 Million Donation Gives Library Users A Wonderful Life

2013-01-01T09:09:27-05:00

By AMY GEDULDIG and ANGELA MONTEFINISE

She was like a character out of a heartwarming, holiday movie - literally.

New York City's own Mary Bailey was a quiet, modest woman, as stoic as the seminal character of the same name in the Christmas classic, "It's A Wonderful Life." She lived a seemingly average life, graduating at the Bank Street College, teaching pre-school for a few years, visiting her beloved 58th Street library regularly, and purposely remaining under-the-radar, where she preferred to be.

The tall, lean, unassuming widow who enjoyed a simple life in New York City. One would never guess that she was actually a multi-millionaire.

The Northampton, Massachusetts native who arrived in Manhattan in the 1940s inherited her wealth from her family. Her mother's side was involved in the enormously successful Roaring Spring Book Company, known for its marble-covered school composition books. She certainly never boasted about the money; in fact, she rarely discussed it at all.

She owned a walk-up on Sutton Place, which she decorated - not with luxurious trappings that might have suited those with more expensive tastes - but with reproductions of her favorite New England-style furniture. She took the subway or walked instead of hiring cars. She preferred track suits to Chanel. She didn't often go out to eat or take in fancy shows - when she did, her friends had to persuade her.

She never remarried after her husband of only one year Frederick Bailey was killed in World War II, and she never had children. She kept her circle of friends small. So when she passed away in 2011 at age 88, it was, much like her life, quiet. In fact, according to her friends, she specifically didn't want an obituary -- typical for her personality.

"She was a terribly private person," said her friend Elizabeth Ann Stoll, who added that Bailey could be self-deprecating and introverted. "She was a good person."

A good person whose last act was anything but quiet, and will never be forgotten at The New York Public Library.

The understated Bailey decided to leave the Library some money, no surprise to those who knew her and knew how much she loved the institution, her local branch and what the library offered New Yorkers.

What was surprising to many was the amount - an incredible $10 million, which will go towards collections, programs, and other services that help the people of New York City. Half of the donation is specifically earmarked for the branches that Bailey loved.

John Bacon, director of planned giving at The New York Public Library, worked with Bailey to coordinate her donation, but was completely taken aback when he learned of its size. "Mary was quiet," he said. "She didn't call attention to herself and never hinted at her fortune. In the years that I knew her, I would never have guessed the enormous gift she would give us."

The Library actually received the money this year, which means in 2013, the people of New York City will greatly benefit from one quiet woman's unexpected generosity. Bailey gave without any desire for credit, without any desire for fanfare. But as the city prepares to celebrate a new year, the Library -- which relies on private support -- is spotlighting the selfless donation, and thanking Bailey for making this new year a happy one, and helping to give NYPL users a wonderful life.

Learn more about how to support The New York Public Library.

The Macaroni and Cheese Challenge: A Little Patience, a Dash of Fortitude and a LOT of Cheddar

2012-12-07T16:15:03-05:00

By Nora Lyons

It is no secret that The New York Public Library has a hearty appreciation for food. Our current exhibition, Lunch Hour NYC, contains a healthy dose of material about the quintessential mid-day meal -- including menus, lunch boxes, even an Automat! But that's not all! Next week, the Library will be enjoying a particularly tasty week of programming.

On Monday, LIVE from the NYPL welcomes Red Rooster's Marcus Samuelsson to discuss his memoir Yes, Chef, and on Tuesday, restaurateur Danny Meyer (Blue Smoke, Shake Shack, and The Union Square Café) joins writers Ian Frazier, Karen Russell and Molly O'Neill to discuss everyone's favorite midday meal, lunch.

We decided that the best way to prepare ourselves for the upcoming display of delicious programming was to partake in some healthy -- if somewhat caloric -- competition, otherwise known as a cook-off:

The Macaroni and Cheese recipes and their respective chefs:

Marcus Samuelsson's recipe for Macaroni and Cheese alla Carbonara, prepared by Johannes Neuer in NYPL's Marketing Department

An approximation of Blue Smoke's Macaroni & Cheese, by LIVE from the NYPL's Mariel Fiedler.

Horn & Hardart's Automat recipe from NYPL's Lunch Hour NYC, courtesy of Amy Geduldig in NYPL's Public Relations Department

Our judges:

Marie d'Origny deputy director of the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers

Rebecca Federman, curator for Lunch Hour NYC

Aisha Ahmad-Post from LIVE from the NYPL

After sampling the three dishes, prepared lovingly by our chefs, the three judges picked a "clear winner": Macaroni and Cheese alla Carbonara, Marcus Samuelsson's recipe expertly recreated by Johannes. The judges were gastronomically pleased by the textures and complex flavors of the dish, which included bacon with a touch of bread crumbs. With the judges' unanimous decision, we invited the rest of the room to partake in the Mac & Cheese extravaganza.

It was determined by some of the unofficial taste-testers that Mariel's interpretation of Blue Smoke's Mac N' Cheese, with its rich and creamy palette, was more than memorable. Meanwhile, Amy's Automat Macaroni and Cheese won the prize for historical accuracy, but had a hard time standing up to today's culinary masters. (*Although, Amy, the chef herself, placed the blame squarely on her own cooking ability, rather than the recipe itself).

In the end we learned a very valuable lesson: when the competition is a battle of Macaroni and Cheese recipes, everybody wins!

(And don't forget to visit the Library next week to learn more about our culinary inspirations, Marcus Samuelsson and Danny Meyer)

Race and American Politics

2012-11-29T15:44:08-05:00

It's been just over three weeks since voters took to the polls, but here at the Library, one of the issues we've been discussing is how race played a role in this year's election and the future of American politics.

Although, many of the Schomburg Center's Junior Scholars aren't old enough to vote -- they are between 11 and 18 years old -- they have a deep commitment to civic engagement and were extremely interested in the results of the election. A recent poll conducted among the students revealed that more than 80 percent of the Junior Scholars watched the election night coverage and that they were inspired by the electoral process:

"I was excited to see so many blacks and Latinos at the polls. After the win, I was shocked to see so many white Americans at the Obama party on 42nd (Street)!"
-Nailah

"I just hope that no matter what color the president is, change will come."
-Nkosi

The Schomburg Junior Scholars are excited to see what the future holds for them under the second term of President Obama and his successors. As the next generation of American voters, they desire to see positive change in the issues of economy, unemployment and education. But, perhaps more important to the Junior Scholars and America's youth, they see this year's election as an opportunity towards "making history, one step at a time."

Tonight, we'll get another perspective on the topic of race in politics when author Darryl Pinckney delivers this year's Robert B. Silvers Lecture, entitled "Blacks in American Democracy," at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. We asked the former Dorothy & Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars & Writers fellow to answer a few questions about this year's election and how it might change the future political landscape:

What are the most surprising ways that race played a role in this year's election?
The surprising thing about race in the 2012 election is that it hardly figured at all, or not to the degree it did four years ago when Americans were very proud of the historic importance of their having elected its first black president. Obama then went on to be the president of all the people, some would say, while others would argue that public reaction to some of his interventions on racial matters -- the Gates Affair; the Trayvon Martin murder -- indicate that white people are nevertheless anxious about what sort of Black Experiences their president is identifying with. In the campaign itself, the old racist images that for decades rallied the Solid South and sent it to the polls had no place. Obama's sheer presence made such images impossible to deploy or bring forth. Those who complain that Obama's blackness is largely symbolic might appreciate how powerful the First Family is as a symbol, not only in the United States, but around the world.

Do you think Obama's presidency will open the door to candidates from other racial backgrounds?
We may have to wait some time before there is another black president, but there is no question that Obama's presidency will lead to that of a woman and then a Latino. Obama's second presidential victory indicates that the coalition his campaign put together in 2008 has held and is an instrument that can be handed on. Moreover, the organizational advantage has shifted from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party because the information age is dominated by the young now.

How would you finish the following sentence: The ideal outcome that Obama's presidency could possibly have on race in American politics is...
That the mention of race won't put voters on the defensive or sound like special interest pleading.

Has Obama's Presidency created additional racial challenges/obstacles that might not have existed had he lost the White House?

Some black critics have argued that Obama's presidency has come at the price of an independent black politics, and that coalition politics in the end put black politicians in the position of not being able to advocate for black people. Had he lost, many would have felt it necessary to return to older models of black politics, because a Romney victory would have meant the return of modern white supremacy. The challenge for Obama is to prove to black people that they will not be lost in his coalition politics. Then, too, blacks are not the only ones in serious need of federal help. It's time to talk about class in America.

Additional reporting by Nora Lyons and Amy Geduldig

Elephant-Shaped Buildings and Other Curiosities: NYPL's Map Librarian Talks About Making Historical Geography a Part of the Internet

2012-07-26T12:32:18-04:00

By Matt Knutzen, Geospatial Librarian - The New York Public Library

One hundred years ago, a building-sized elephant stood across the street from the Coney Island Cyclone. The "elephant bazaar," which once occupied the area on the North side of Surf Avenue, was an exciting discovery for The New York Public Library's Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, which, with the aid of a generous three-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), is busy transforming NYPL's historical paper map and atlas collections into a powerful digital resource.

"Brooklyn Vol. B Plate No. 175 [Map bounded by Stillwell Ave., Overton Place, W. 10th St.]." The New York Public Library, Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division. Digital ID 1808916.

Digitizing the old maps -- in this initial stage, primarily detailed insurance and real estate atlases of New York City -- is only the beginning of a multi-step process that turns map images into actual geographical data. Imagine Google Maps, but with a "go back in time" option. Here's how it works:

Maps are scanned and converted to high resolution digital images;

The images are georectified (or more colloquially, "rubber-sheeted," or "warped"): a process that involves aligning the pixels on an old map to the latitude/longitude on a virtual map;

The warped maps are then cropped to remove extraneous non-map information (such as page borders);

Finally, map data (such as building footprints or ward boundaries) are traced and transcribed into open, exportable formats.

All of the above work is carried out by a combination of Library staff and public volunteers through a web-based toolkit affectionately dubbed the "Map Warper". The NYPL Map Warper website includes a how-to instruction video, along with a detailed georectification guide. There are also instructions on map cropping, a necessary step in the creation of map mosaics. (See Unbinding the Atlas: Working with Digital Maps for more information on this process.)

Thanks to the NEH grant, the Library estimated that approximately 7,200 maps could be scanned, but the overall project proceeded much faster than expected.

"Insurance Maps of Brooklyn New York Sanborn Perris map co. 113 Broadway, New York. Volume 'B' 1895." The New York Public Library, Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division. Digital ID 1808871.

Roughly 7,800 new maps have been scanned and mounted thus far, and more than 9,300 metadata records have been created for related collections, including our New York City zoning maps dating to 1916, most of our public domain fire insurance atlases of areas outside of the city in New York and New Jersey, and NYPL's entire collection of historical and contemporary New York state topographic maps.

If the project's current pace continues at this rate, the Library anticipates more than 17,000 historical maps will be digitized, most of which concentrate on the five boroughs, with significant coverage of upstate New York and New Jersey as well. The scanned maps can be found in a number of places, starting with a chronological list of atlases arranged by borough in The Library's Digital Gallery. For example, one of the atlases highlighted here (Insurance Maps of Brooklyn New York), features a graphically rich index page illustrating a Brooklyn that has yet to fill in the projected urban grid.

Once the maps are scanned, they are georectified using the Map Warper. With the help of our patrons, the Library has made great progress in georectifying New York City maps, warping about 2,400 sheets from approximately 162 atlases.

A collage of some of the georectified map layers from the project, including William Perris's Maps of the City of New York (1857-1862); G.W. Bromley's Atlas of the City of New York, Borough of Queens... (1909); the Bronx Topographical Survey's Topographic Survey and New Street System of the Borough of the Bronx... (1905); G.M. Hopkins's Detailed Estate and Old Farm Line Atlas of the City of Brooklyn (1880); and G.W. Bromley's Atlas of the City of New York, Borough of Richmond, Staten Island (1917).

After georectification comes map tracing, and this is where the proverbial rubber meets the road in working with historical maps. This type of data will eventually allow you to ask your phone a question, such as, "I'm standing in front of the Coney Island Cyclone -- what other attractions would I see if I was here 100 years ago?" (Answer: The afore-mentioned Elephant Bazaar.) If map warping involves preparing digital image pixels of old maps to relate to one another geospatially, map tracing involves preparing data to be harvested, mined, analyzed, mashed, and made part of the "Semantic Web" to connect related data across time. As with warping the maps, the Map Division would love the assistance of our users in helping us expand this trove of historical footprints. The Library's digitization guide to map tracing is available to help the public learn more. (At the bottom of this post, there are a few screenshots and links illustrating how we're starting to play with visualizing some of this data in Google Maps.)

"The colossal elephant of Coney Island (1885)." The New York Public Library, Mid-Manhattan Picture Collection. Digital ID 801320.

The large majority of maps we're working with in this project are fire insurance maps, which were designed to give insurance adjusters a reasonable metric to assign fire insurance values to buildings. This was accomplished by documenting, among many other things, each building structure's street address, construction materials (e.g. wood, brick, etc.), and property height (in stories), as well as the location of fire hydrants and the general location and width of water mains (to gauge available water pressure levels at each hydrant location). The goal of the project is to trace from a series of atlases all of the buildings' spatial footprints, and then transcribe all of the accompanying feature data. The ability to search this data as searchable (i.e. machine readable) information breathes new life into these wonderful historical documents by expanding their use in a wider, linked-data universe.

If you're interested in learning more, please visit the Map Division, located in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, or join us for a Citizen Cartography workshop.

The three images featured here show a set of building footprint data derived from William Perris's first edition Maps of the City of New York, published in a 98-sheet, seven-volume series between 1852-1854. The data was traced at maps.nypl.org, and cleaned-up using regular expressions and the Google Refine tool. The resulting data was then loaded into Google Fusion tables, where it was stylized. The first image shows the map data from the Perris atlas, its color based on the attributes in the "material type" field. The second image, derived from the same data, is filtered to show only buildings that are Mixed Use (residential and commercial), and buildings where small business people lived -- sole proprietors -- either in a back apartment or upstairs, who ran some sort of business from home. The third image, also derived from the same data, is filtered to show only Mixed Use buildings that are framed (wooden). This type of filtering, along with the potential for analyzing building data, is a powerful and dynamic way to explore and understand the historical city. And this type of methodology, i.e. moving paper, analog collections from the material to the digital world and then making them machine readable, queriable, linkable, and generally more intelligent and more than the sum of their parts, is at the core of this project and many others in the wider world of digital scholarship.

This is a modified version of an original post made at NYPL Blogs.

Preserving a Hero's Legacy

2012-07-26T10:23:11-04:00

By Angela Montefinise

Image courtesy of HBO

Vito Russo never accepted injustice, even as a child.

When the legendary activist and pioneer in the at-times brutal fight for gay rights was just a young boy growing up on the rough streets of East Harlem in New York City, he was teased mercilessly by older boys, who constantly yelled gay slurs at him and, sometimes, beat him up.

"I remember when he was about 12, we were walking home from Catholic school in our little white shirts and our blue pants, and one of the older boys said, 'Here come the Girl Scouts,'" said Vito's younger brother Charlie Russo. "Even though they were bigger, Vito stood up to them. He always did. So he said to them, 'If we're Girl Scouts, then your mother is a Campfire Girl.'"

"You could just see that gene of advocacy even then," Charlie Russo said. "He was just not going to take it. He used to say, 'Some people are not upset about it. Injustice. But I am.'"

That was the theme of Vito Russo's life, and the subject of the new heart-wrenching and inspiring HBO documentary Vito, directed by Jeffrey Schwarz. It spotlights the passionate, dedicated and fierce-yet-gentle activist who helped found organizations such as ACT UP, exposed negative stereotypes of homosexuals in mass-market films in his legendary book The Celluloid Closet and fought for government action during the AIDS crisis, which took both him and his partner.

Diary entry about Jeffrey Sevcik's death on March 6, 1986 -- Vito Russo Papers, courtesy of The New York Public Library's Manuscripts & Archives Division

"I want people to know and fall in love with Vito, who in my mind was one of the the founding fathers of the gay rights movement," Schwarz said.

He is someone who has been criminally neglected over the years. His contribution was so vast. So many of the institutions we know today, Vito had a hand in. So I wanted to rejuvenate his memory and introduce him to the next generation of gay and lesbian kids, or really, anyone interested in justice. How can one person change the world? He did it. If he saw injustice in the world, he got off his butt and did something about it. He paved the way for the world we live in today. People need to understand that.

Phyllis Antonellis, Vito's cousin and babysitter, said she was overcome with emotion when she saw the documentary, first with sadness, and then with "awe" at Vito's brilliance. "How brilliant is this boy," she asked, then joking, "Where did he come from? And how did get into our family?"

She said that Vito's purpose was not only to help his own generation, but future generations, and she said,

It is amazing to me to have 17-year-old kids say that they never met Vito, but now he's their new hero. Now that I watched this documentary I thoroughly understand how important Vito was. He was born for this mission and what he accomplished. Even as a young boy, he was this fiery, passionate advocate for justice, while also being a great kid, who always called and always had time for his family. And never, since he's gone, will there ever be anyone else like him.

The film -- which debuted on July 23 and is now running on HBO, HBO OnDemand and HBO Go -- , drew heavily from research materials at The New York Public Library's Manuscripts & Archives Division, including photos, materials in the ACT UP archive, and Vito's papers , which were donated after his death by his close friend.

"I was able to access his papers that had a treasure trove of materials that included much of Vito's writing over the years for various publications, most of which are not in publication anymore, so this was the only place I could find them," Schwarz explained. "We also found videotapes of his lectures. One of the treasures we found at NYPL was a phone message from Jeffrey, his lover in the later years of his life. It was the last phone message that Jeffrey left for Vito before he went to the hospital. I think Vito knew there must be a reason to keep it."

The recording is in the documentary, and Schwarz said, "It was a very sweet and friendly message. Nothing dramatic about it. It was very intimate, and pays a pivotal role on our story, because losing Jeffrey, he was very special to Vito, and they were both dealing with the disease together, with very different personalities. It must have been very hard."

In 2008 the Library launched its LGBT initiative to process, preserve and digitize its vast collection of gay and lesbian related material, such as Vito Russo's papers, located in various departments of the Library, from the Manuscripts &Archives Division to the Billy Rose Theatre Division to the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive at the Schomburg Center. The goal was to make this material as accessible as possible, and thanks to generous contributions from individuals and companies such as Time Warner, the Library is moving closer to that goal.

"People don't realize that we have this history," said Jason Baumann, coordinator of the LGBT initiative. "People don't know that NYPL is one ofthe great repositories of the history of gay and lesbian activism in the country. There are only a few places that have comparable collections."

Hermes Mallea, who along with his business and life partner Carey Maloney has worked to raise funding and awareness of the initiative, added,

The Library has been collecting for the gay community for 100 years. They've been collecting without the gay community having to ask that. To see these many collections used by the historians and the documentary filmmakers to create something like this movie is just an affirmation of what we've always been thinking, which is that the NYPL is the place, thanks to these collections and open access to these collections, for historians who are writing and will be writing about the gay liberation movement. This is their resource. That is so heartwarming.

It is fitting that the Library is the place for such research, especially about Vito.

"If you wanted to find Vito as a kid, the two places he'd go were the movie theater and the library," Charlie Russo said. "So it's wonderful that the boy who was nurtured by going to the library and considered it a safe haven is having his work and his legacy preserved by the Library."

He added, "I hope after this movie comes out, using the stuff at the Library, that he's not considered a gay rights hero. He was just a hero. Period."

Image courtesy of Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen, Gay History Papers and Photographs
Manuscripts & Archives Division

The Lunch Box: A Cultural Icon

2012-07-12T12:36:56-04:00

By Amy Geduldig

The lunch box. In the 1980s it was a revered cultural icon that marked your status in the upper echelons of elementary school society. Square, tin replicas of Rainbow Brite or The Dukes of Hazzard decorated school cafeterias nationwide and were the envy of the bagged-lunch set. Sandwiched between the blazing hot popularity of those with remarkably awesome lunch boxes and the attempted indifference of brown paper baggers were the owners of the incredibly awkward, sadly golden Tupperware lunch container; to call it a lunch box would have been an insult to the very ideal we -- the owners of said container -- held most dear.

Occasionally, in a fit of pique or boredom, a student would be so inclined to trace the alphabet that graced the container's exterior; though such tracings could be considered juvenile, even for an eight year old. Attempts to "jazz" up the Tupperware lunch container also failed miserably, as one cycle in a dishwasher was all it took to remove any trace of creativity from the teflon-like plastic. My years spent in the Robbins Lane Elementary School cafeteria, therefore, were an interesting affair of attempting to hide the lunch container or ignoring it completely.

By the time I reached middle school, I had graduated to the brown paper bag, which featured my name in my mother's neat handwriting -- infinitely more acceptable in the cafeteria. But, it is unfair simply to vent my disdain of the Tupperware lunch container. Within its confines were the homemade lunches prepared lovingly by my mother: peanut butter and jelly, tuna fish, turkey, and perhaps most intriguing, cream cheese and jelly on white bread. Often these sandwiches -- soup was rarity, as the Tupperware lunch container did not have space for a thermos -- were accompanied by notes of support, encouragement and loving affection; wishing me well on a test or simply saying I love you.

I realize now that my lunch box was just as cool as the trendy tin it tried to emulate. Yes, the alphabet embossing was embarrassing. The bright, unmistakeable, golden color was hideous. But, looking at this vestige of my youth, all I feel is a loving sentimentality for the nourishment my lunch box provided both my body and my soul.

Thanks to The New York Public Library, everyone has the opportunity to relive such fond memories. Lunch Hour NYC, currently on display at the Gottesman Exhibition Hall at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, highlights the quintessential New York City meal. Included in the exhibition is an array of lunch time possibilities -- the Automat, the power lunch, the knish and its Indian cousin the Samosa, and of course the school lunch and its important accessory -- the lunch box.

NYPL Embraces the Future of Libraries - Today

2012-04-10T12:37:03-04:00

Your Questions Answered

By Anthony Marx
President, The New York Public Library

The ground under all libraries is shifting. From financial uncertainties to the challenges of guaranteeing digital access for all, the country's largest circulating library has no choice but to change. We must also preserve our position as one of the world's great research libraries. The New York Public Library must make some important choices to ensure our strengths.

To help us make these choices, we recently launched a website and public engagement process to solicit your suggestions and concerns about our plans. We know that change is not easy. And we know that we cannot do this without input from our users.

As interest grows around next steps for our libraries, including the landmark Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, I wanted to address some of the questions we have received. But first, I want to state up front: our absolute priority is to preserve the integrity of the Library and its collections, as well as the unparalleled quality of the services we offer. This is the baseline we must maintain in order to do even more.

How do plans for the 42nd Street building fit in with the needs of the system as a whole?

The plan for 42nd Street is a plan for the future of all NYPL libraries. We are dedicated to making sure that free and open access to information continues for all--be they scholars and writers who need rare collections and dedicated spaces in which to work; students looking for books, community, and inspiration; general readers; or citizens interested in educational programs.

We have already invested $300 million in 50 libraries across our system in the past decade, with an additional $125 million to $150 million planned for branch renovations and other capital projects over the next five years. We have built new libraries in Battery Park City in Manhattan and High Bridge and Kingsbridge in the Bronx; the brand-new Mariners Harbor Library in Staten Island will open later this year. We have also completely renovated branches: wholly refurbished Stapleton and Washington Heights libraries will be unveiled at the end of the year.

We are also working to add more educational programs throughout the system to meet the vital needs of New Yorkers, including providing greater access to our collections for New York City public school students, expanding English language programs to meet the needs of immigrants, improving jobs and computer training skills necessary for people to move up in today's economy, and introducing extended-day programs for public school students to boost academic achievement. These programs, like the renovations at 42nd Street, will require a good deal of funding, but we believe the intellectual, cultural, and educational benefits will far outweigh the investment.

What is the purpose of the transformation of the main building?

We are committed not only to maintaining but enhancing the resources, facilities, and services we provide to our entire community of patrons--academics, professional authors, freelancers, first-time novelists, artists, students, and so many others. For the first time in more than three decades, the 42nd Street library will house a major browsable circulating collection in addition to its superb research collections. The formula is simple: more readers, plus all the books, materials, and services they need, will infuse the building with even more intellectual and creative vitality. We also want patrons to be able to work in the Library later (a top user request)--to 11 p.m. most evenings.

Improvements are planned throughout the building. One exciting change involves the creation of a new scholars and writers center to accommodate at least 400 writers (more than double the current number), with our Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers remaining the crown jewel. In addition to work areas with carrels or open desks, we will provide personal shelves to hold books while they are being used, skilled librarians to suggest even more collection resources, a writers' lounge, and more. Above these spaces, the third floor's majestic Rose Main Reading Room and unique special collections reading rooms will remain as they are, easily accessible from the main Fifth Avenue entrance.

By opening many areas that are today closed to the public, the 42nd Street library, which will incorporate the Mid-Manhattan Library and the Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL), will actually have significantly more public space than what is currently available in the three buildings combined. This will allow us to create the largest circulating library in the country at 42nd Street. Some have shared concerns that this will compromise our commitment to research. We believe instead that the circulating library will complement and reinforce research, bringing even more readers into the building who will be able to more easily explore the unique research-level collections. Researchers, in turn, will be able to take advantage of the circulating collection.

As for the invaluable research collections, the plan addresses very serious storage and preservation needs, ensuring that the collections will be available to students, writers, and academics for generations to come. Materials shelved in our current stacks--built under the Rose Main Reading Room more than a century ago--are in jeopardy of damage and decay. Extensive research has led to a solution: most of those collections will stay on-site; some materials, such as items never requested and those easily accessible elsewhere and available digitally, will be moved off-site, where they will be housed in optimal preservation conditions while remaining easily retrievable within 24 hours. (These plans are discussed in more detail below.)

We should also point out that, while not a driving force behind the plan, resulting financial benefits will help undergird the Library's budget for research services and scholarly acquisitions. Selling the buildings that currently house the Mid-Manhattan and SIBL libraries--once their collections and services are consolidated into 42nd Street--will result in proceeds and increased operating efficiencies (through staff attrition, not layoffs). The result: an additional $10 to $15 million a year to spend on Library priorities that include, for example, curatorial staff and the research collections, which now receive important but limited funding from the City.

Users from all our libraries will have a centrally located facility filled with books and extensive research collections that continue to grow, knowledgeable librarians and curatorial staff, rooms for quiet study or collaboration, educational programs, and computers and databases. This premier research library will be essential to the maintenance of our culture and the production of new ideas for our economy and democracy.

In the meantime, our aim is to minimize any inconvenience to patrons by scheduling the most disruptive construction work after regular opening hours.

Can the Mid-Manhattan Library and the Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) stay open? Why not just renovate Mid-Manhattan?

These very important libraries are moving, not closing.

Mid-Manhattan will continue as the nation's largest circulating library within the 42nd Street building. SIBL's world-class business research services and collections will be enhanced. This new main library will be a state-of-the-art public facility, which is why the City has earmarked funds specifically for this project. In fact, the combined libraries, by making use of currently underutilized and outdated stack areas, will result in an increase of up to 20,000 square feet in public space over what the three buildings now offer in total.

It is important to note that during this process we do not anticipate that either library will lose a single day of service; only when the new facility is ready will Mid-Manhattan and SIBL move to 42nd Street. On the other hand, if we were to renovate the current Mid-Manhattan (this would have to be done, given its state of disrepair), the library would have to be closed for years during construction. The cost would be at least $150 million, and we would lose the proceeds of the sale of the building--funds that would otherwise support critical Library priorities including our collections and curatorial services.

Are all the books being removed from 42nd Street?

Definitely not. While a number of books will be moved off-site for improved conservation and to help make room for the circulating library, it is a patent misconception that all the books will be removed.

Currently, there are approximately 3 million volumes in the closed stacks under the Main Reading Room, the majority of which will remain on-site. That's in addition to the millions of manuscripts, prints, photographs, pamphlets, and maps that aren't going anywhere.

Curators and librarians, in consultation with a scholars advisory group (including people who have voiced important concerns about the plan), are now assessing exactly how many and which volumes might move off-site; these volumes would be made available within 24 hours of a patron's request. We are currently determining which books have not been and are not likely to be used at all. Materials accounting for 90 percent of research usage will stay at 42nd Street. Frequently and even rarely used volumes and materials, special collections, and items belonging to unique collections that need to remain on-site--will remain. At a minimum, we expect to retain all humanities, social science, and business books from at least the past two decades; and core history, literature, area studies, art, genealogy, technology, and business and industry materials that would be difficult to access elsewhere. Whenever possible, we will err on the side of keeping books on-site. To be clear, if we need to make space for even more books at 42nd Street than planned in order for NYPL to remain one of the best research libraries in the world, then we will do so.

The transfer of some rarely if ever used volumes off-site is in fact part of an ongoing process. Every year we acquire tens of thousands of new books, and we must therefore send about the same number off-site to make room for new, more in-demand titles. Most people do not realize that almost half of the research collections are already stored off-site (a standard, necessary practice of major research libraries).

I would also like to address one erroneous criticism that has been repeated several times: the idea that books are making way for an "Internet café." This is simply untrue. There will still be extensive collections in our new, leading-edge library, and they will benefit everyone. Future scholars of the world can join the rest of the public inside the People's Palace and be inspired along with researchers and scholars. Yes, there will be computers--which increasing numbers of our patrons, including students, writers, and families, say they want more of in their libraries. Indeed, many of our users who cannot afford computers or Internet access at home rely upon us for being able to go online. But there will be much, much more. We want to expand learning and intellectual pursuits throughout the building.

How can you guarantee that off-site books will be made available in 24 hours?

The 24-hour turnaround time for off-site research materials is critical to the success of this plan. Our commitment to this time frame is real, it is part of our budgeting plan, and we are already working to make it a reality.

Major advances we expect to introduce shortly that will lead to more efficient delivery services include a new interface that allows patrons to place orders online and the addition of Saturday delivery. We will also be increasing the number of retrieval staff, bar coding every item, and implementing instant digital scanning and improved downloading options, so that even more collection materials and volumes, including public domain books and scholarly journals, can be accessed digitally.

The Library is one of the last quiet places left in New York where we can work and study. Will that go away?

The building, it must be remembered, is huge (bigger than most New Yorkers probably realize), and will be designed to ensure that traffic flows accommodate all of our visitors. Most people come to the Library for quiet and they will still find the spaces they need, in both our historic areas and the inspiring new ones. Those who want to collaborate or attend workshops and talks will find separate spaces for such activities as well. We want this to be an inviting, vital hub for all New Yorkers, whether they want to while away an afternoon reading, research a book, trace their family roots, start or grow a business, or get help with a homework assignment.

Spaces will also be delineated, with the circulating and research areas on different floors. Those wanting to go straight to the circulating library will have an entrance directly into the new Mid-Manhattan branch. At the same time, our expectation is that Mid-Manhattan patrons will be drawn into other areas as their own research deepens, just as scholars will find it easier than ever to borrow from the circulating collections.

Every year, the Library faces public funding cuts and asks for New Yorkers' support. How does this square with the millions being spent on the 42nd Street building?

The plan for 42nd Street is a plan and an investment for the future. It is a way for us to ensure that our libraries--which are more critical than ever--remain strong for years to come. This is especially true on the research side, which receives valuable but limited City funding. That is why the plan's financial benefits are so important, supporting both collection development and our branch libraries over time.

Still, the immediate reality is that we do have very significant operating costs to worry about, especially as we face proposed City budget cuts that would greatly impact the branch libraries. As part of its original pact with Andrew Carnegie, the City is committed to funding the branches. Yet the current proposed budget, which could still change, calls for a $43 million cut to our annual operating budget (making this year's budget, by comparison, 44 percent lower than that of Fiscal Year 2008). The Mayor and City Council have worked valiantly to protect the Library as an essential resource in New York City, center of the Information Age. We still rely on the City's generosity, and to keep services, hours, and programs at the level our patrons require, we very much need the public to help us fight the cuts.

The challenges are significant. The Library cannot stand still. We believe that the new 42nd Street library could be the most important civic building project in New York City for at least a generation. It will be your library. So please continue to share your reactions and suggestions. Our goal is clear: to ensure that the entire NYPL system remains the essential provider of free educational resources for all New Yorkers, and a beacon of intellectual inspiration around the world.

Doodle 4 Google... And for the Future

2012-03-16T14:49:15-04:00

By Angela Montefinise

Be creative, draw a doodle, and you could see your artwork end up on Google!

That's the message Google is sending to kids across the country as part of its fifth annual Doodle 4 Google contest, which launched on January 18. Kids in grades K-12 can submit their own "Google doodle" -- a decorated version of the company's logo that celebrates key events -- in the hopes that their drawing will win the top spot and grace the Google homepage on May 18.

In 2011, seven-year-old Californian Matteo Lopez submitted the Doodle 4 Google winner "Space Life"

This year, The New York Public Library is a partner in the contest, and the top 50 designs -- one from each state -- will be displayed in an exhibition at the landmark Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

Google wants to give students a blank canvas and harness their curiosity to imagine the past, present, or future with its theme, "If I could travel in time, I'd visit..." This open ended prompt is intended to encourage creative, inspiring, and fun ideas of what they would explore and observe regardless of when an event took place. "We're so excited that the New York Public Library will be our national exhibition partner this year," said Alex Davenport, manager of the Doodle 4 Google program. "The NYPL represents the spirit of exploration, intellectual engagement, and creativity that not only make Doodle 4 Google special, but are values we hold near and dear here at Google."

While the process is fun and exciting for the kids, it can also be an important step in their creative development. Library experts agree that the contest can help nurture a life-long appreciation of creativity, imagination and the arts. "It is really important to engage kids as designers and to encourage them to be part of a community-wide event," said Jack Martin, the Library's assistant director for Public Programs and Lifelong Learning and a judge in this year's Doodle 4 Google contest. "It is so inspiring for children to get recognized on a national scale for expressing themselves and for creating their own art, and it can spark further imagination, creativity and growth."

Mike Dutton, a member of Google's Doodle team, embodies this philosophy. "For me the pinnacle of success when I was growing up as a young artist was to actually have my artwork pinned on the chalkboard and have it shown in front of the whole class. To me that was IT. And for kids now to have the opportunity to have their artwork 'pinned' on the homepage for millions of people to see is just awesome."

Guest judges in this year's contest in addition to the Library's Martin are singers Katy Perry and Jordin Sparks, Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, creator of the hit Disney Channel show "Phineas and Ferb", authors Mo Willems, Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi and Brian Nemeckay, Digital Design Creative Director at Crayola, a Doodle 4 Google partner.

Kids can submit one doodle each to the contest until March 23 - so they should get cracking to have a chance to see their work displayed at the iconic New York Public Library 42nd Street building.

To get them started, here's some advice from Jennifer Hom, another member of Google's doodle team: "Draw every day, draw what you love and have fun!"

Why does Rousseau matter today?

2012-03-07T13:54:34-05:00

This year, Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau turns 300. To celebrate, the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York and the City of Geneva have curated a series of events exploring Swiss innovation. Included in the festival is "Occupy Rousseau," an evening of discussion around Rousseau and democracy at the New York Public Library on March 9.

Ambassador François Barras, consul general of Switzerland in New York, shares his thoughts on why Rousseau's ideas remain so crucial in our modern world.

How do the political ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau - an 18th century philosopher born before universal suffrage, when most of the world was ruled by absolute monarchies - speak to 21st century New Yorkers? What could his relevance to our lives possibly be today?

Rousseau lived in a very different era, but his exploration of the place of the individual in society could have been written yesterday. His words address many of today's worries, especially about social inequality and dysfunctional democracy.

Most experts agree that we are experiencing a profound social malaise. The growing income divide is one of the biggest risks facing the world in the coming years. Many citizens feel unrepresented by the people they elect and threatened by the many lobbies defending special interests. If the social contract we take for granted is really in danger of being destroyed in our developed society, it is essential to define a new one. Rousseau's ideas are integral to that quest.

Rousseau does not offer ready-made solutions but often asks the right questions: How do we reconcile man's individualism and the interests of society? How do we organize political life around a common aim? He also corners meaningful concepts, such as the general will expressed in the social contract between the citizen and the state, emphasizing the importance of political participation and the danger of extreme inequalities. He highlights the values of freedom, equality and community.

Like Rousseau three centuries ago, we in the 21st-century have to look for and identify the common good that will enable our society to revive democracy, solidarity and the art of living together.

"Occupy Rousseau: Inequality and Social Justice," an evening of readings, debates, discussions and presentations, will be hosted by LIVE from the NYPL on March 9. More information can be found at nypl.org/live.

The event is presented as part of ThinkSwiss: Genève Meets New York, A Festival of Global Ideas Born In Geneva, running March 6-12. Building on the tricentennial anniversary of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's birth, this festival features more than 10 panel discussions and live performances, drawing attention to global ideas that were born in Geneva and still reverberate worldwide today.

The Art of Defining Art

2012-02-28T12:39:33-05:00

By Angela Montefinise

What is art?

This seemingly simple question is anything but -- in fact, it usually sparks endless debate and leads to countless "answers," one more complicated than the next.

Just ask Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, who tackles the difficult subject in a Floating University video lecture being presented for free at The New York Public Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street at 6 p.m. on Feb. 29.

"There's a lot of art being made out there that's being contested," said Botstein, a Bronx native who will do a Q and A session after the lecture. "People argue about it, people say, ' Oh, this is not art. This is just junk or scandal. It really is not art.' So the important question is, what is art? Is there such a thing? Does it exist and how do we recognize it?"

He said the question -- which has great impact on funding for institutions and educational curricula -- is particularly important in the United States, where, "there really isn't a sense of national art the way, for example, the Austrians believe that Mozart is crucial to who they are."

"What we've done in this country is say that this is a private matter, so it becomes completely dependent on the opinion of the wealthy," Botstein said in an interview with the Library. "Art becomes a private matter and a matter of private support... therefore we can't actually figure out what we're doing when we think about passing an aesthetic sensibility to a next generation."

He added that there is a tendency in the U.S. among other places to look for concrete usefulness for art, and said, "We don't teach art in school because it seems separate from useful things, like science ... The reason you should teach art is that kids who take art do better in math. If you're pregnant and you listen to Mozart, the baby will be smarter. These are all perfectly good arguments, but they hurt the real issue. "

"Maybe there are aspects of art that really suggest that there is some social, moral society value to developing people's aesthetic sensibility, the recognition of the beauty," he said.

So what makes something art, in Botstein's view?

"I actually think art is party determined by its weakest defense, by the intention of the maker," Botstein said. "So you can have art -- it doesn't make it good art -- but someone who thinks they are doing something that has a community content that exceeds or bypasses or gets around the linguistic and the obviously rational. And they're trying to communicate with us, with others who participate in this art in a way that somehow suggests or communicates something of real value that can't be said or can't be easily described. The art is dependent of the person who is seeking to declare it art."

"The other way of looking at it is, if it seems to evoke, even inadvertently... it can be a piece of art. It gains significance way beyond its intentions."

He said art is "particularly ethically powerful in a democracy," and said, "In a democracy it is completely dependent and thrives on the idea of individuality. It breeds an appreciation for dissent or difference, for absence of sameness. We're under a lot of pressure to conform, we're under a lot of pressure to give up the inherent and explicit freedoms that we have. We're under pressure not to stand out from the crowd... Art makes people discover the power of their imagination. It gives them a venue to distinguish themselves by the mere way in which they express their imagination. "

"So much of what we do in school gets compared on a metrical level," he continued. "You know, Johnny got 95 and Suzie got 93, it's all measurable. Art is beginning to create criteria of value that is not all about measurement. It becomes a different kind of realizing one's self in a disciplined way. Art takes work. To draw. To paint. To dance."

Botstein called art "the cultivation of the imagination beyond the practical and utilitarian," and said, "The most important thing about art is it is the most powerful protection against a sense of boredom. And boredom, ultimately, is the most terrifying and most dangerous human experience because boredom creates a sense of meaningless, pointlessness. It destroys our sense of the power of time. Of the finite character of mortality. It creates anger and resentment. And it's unnecessary. The finding or creating of beauty in the world is enormous protection against a sense of meaningless and resentment and pointlessness."

New Perspectives on Old Perspectives: How an Art Project Helped the NYPL Put Its 3D Stereograph Collection in Your Hands

2012-01-26T08:04:28-05:00

by Joshua Heineman

The New York Public Library has released a new website called The Stereogranimator, which allows patrons to create their own animated files or 3-D images from the Library's collection of stereographs, a popular 19th Century photo format. The web project gives this important, historic medium new life, and also highlights the work of NYPL patron Joshua Heineman, who started creating his own moving images from Library stereograms as an art project for his blog. The Library's NYPL Labs team was so impressed it decided to build on his idea. Here's his story about how the idea took shape and grew into a Library project.

What is a photograph if not an invitation to step, however hesitantly, however briefly, into another time? Some of these times are yours, such as those seen in family photo albums or Facebook profile pictures, and some of them are not. It is this last group that has always held a particular fascination for me. From the first time my mother mentioned an aspect of her life that predated my own existence to the last time NASA released images of far-flung galaxies spinning long before our own had taken shape, I have found the concept of time outside of myself to be unspeakably beautiful and liberating.

In a way, old photographs are postcards from another time. If you look through enough of them, you start to notice that many from before 1900 come in seemingly identical pairs. What you may not realize is that these pairs were meant to be viewed together, each side lending the other a sense of depth that a photograph alone cannot possess. Using stereoscopes, the entertainment-seeking public of the 19th century immersed themselves in these 3D photographs (called stereographs) in a manner akin to how we now view movies, video games or cellphone screens. Imagine the impression stereographs must have left on viewers then, considering it was the early days of photography as a medium. Perhaps it would be comparable to building the Burj Khalifa in Chicago just after George Fuller invented the skyscraper or sending the Wright brothers straight to the moon. We'll never know because, while a small number of public, coin-operated stereoscopes still survive in antique arcades such as the Musee Mechanique in San Francisco, the experience of these stereographs in their own time has been lost to history.

Yet we still have these mementos, these curious photo pairs, piled in back rooms and archives across the world. I must have nearly gone blind viewing hundreds of The New York Public Library's online collection of some 40,000 stereographs when I first found them. I knew they were stereo pairs because when I was a child my father had worked with a simple stereoscope in his profession as a forester for the Department of Natural Resources and he'd shown me how he used two aerial photographs from slightly different points in the sky to create a three-dimensional birds-eye-view of timber sales. He'd also explained how his stereoscope worked by teaching me how to view stereo pairs without the scope. For viewing the library's collection, the viewing process initially involved loading a full-screen paired image, setting the laptop on the edge of the bed and then forcing my poor eyes to focus beyond the screen until the resulting double-vision lined up and the middle gained perspective. I spent hours doing this with Muybridge's majestic pictures of the West and street scenes of old New York. Even with the difficult viewing process, the effect was startling. The photographs seemed to regain a sense of the moment that we typically do not associate with history. The people and places pictured were still lost, but somehow they felt more real and more alive in their milieu.

It was chance that changed my private interest into a years-long art project that captivated the internet (as much as such a thing can happen) and made the NYPL's new Stereogranimator, an online animated gif and anaglyph creator designed by NYPL Labs and tied to the Library's vast collection of stereographs, possible. One evening in my final year of college, I was downloading digital snapshots to my laptop when I got a fleeting sense of 3D as the preview screen flicked quickly between two similar shots. I located the individual photos and flipped back and forth between them continually. The parallax effect of minor changes between the two perspectives created a sustained sense of dimension that approximated the effect of stereo viewing. When I realized how the effect was working, I set about discovering if I could capture the same illusion by layering both sides of an old stereograph in Photoshop and displaying the result as an animated gif. The result was more jarring and more shallow than through a stereoscope but no less magic. Besides, there it was on an ordinary computer screen for anyone to experience! A few years later, when I started cursivebuildings.com, I quietly began collecting these re-enlivened stereographs from the NYPL archives under the series title Reaching for the Out of Reach. Within a month, there were 70,000 viewers a day pouring over the project, countless links and features, and emails coming in from all over the world -- including an encouraging note from a director of the Library itself. Clearly, this wasn't such a private interest after all.

A Past You Can Almost Touch & The Modern Perspective

But what elements of these lost moments are regained in an animated gif of a stereograph? Why are we so taken by these strange, flickering scenes? Consider Reaching for the Out of Reach #11, an animated stereograph of a young boy on a warship during the American Civil War. Beyond the simple sense of depth, a viewer is struck by the cold metal gloss of the canon, the weight of the heavy rope in relation to the small boy, and the arrangement of deadly swords on the far wall. The gun seems out of proportion to the child. You want to reach out and shuffle him home before the fighting starts. Unlike a lone photograph, here is someone's memory that you can almost touch! But, of course, you cannot, and that closeness is the torch that draws us in. It's a humbling and humanizing way to experience the photo. These aren't mere symbols of national storybook history, but ghosts of our very real past.

There is also an added element of fantastic whimsy in certain stereographs when viewed from the perspective of the present. While 19th century viewers of the original stereograph for Reaching for the Out of Reach #9 may have enjoyed the dramatic image of luckless passengers shipwrecked on the shores of Massachusetts, it's hard to imagine they would be similarly amused by the sad Victorian-looking characters stranded atop coffee bales and beneath umbrellas while the crippled ship looms like a set piece from some 3D Tim Burton film. The photographers who shot in stereo knew how to use the medium to great effect, producing work that ranged from artistic to documentary to humorous within a remarkably short span. In perusing the collection, one can literally see them playing with the format, seeking its borders and building its audience. This, too, is a history you can reawaken with stereography.

The Bigger Picture

Reaching for the Out of Reach was ultimately a 21st century raid of the NYPL's archive of 19th century treasure. I didn't ask permission. I didn't think to ask, being under a spell of wide-eyed discovery at the time and not expecting anyone to notice. This is the sort of behavior that has led to cease-and-desist letters and lawsuits in recent years. Instead, the library seemed invigorated by the creative reuse, pointing to my project in media and in seminars as an example of a way forward for heritage institutions in the all-access jungle of modern technology. Eventually NYPL Labs, an experimental unit of the library focusing on technology and user collaboration initiatives, began work on the Stereogranimator project to give every patron -- no matter the level of technical ability or aptitude -- access to the same kind of interaction with the library's stereo collection. The only remaining requirement is curiosity. Animated gifs and anaglyphs created on the website are stored in a gallery and users are given code to share their creations elsewhere online. The shared content links to the library's page for the original stereograph, completing the cycle back at the source. This kind of mutually beneficial relationship between archivist and user would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago.

So while I'm honored my work put us on the path to reconnect with this piece of our past, I am thrilled that NYPL Labs set a precedent pointed squarely toward the future.

It's Time For Rolex Arts Weekend at the Library: Dancer Lee Serle and Poet Tracy K. Smith share what it's like working with Trisha Brown and Hans Magnus Enzensberger

2011-11-10T14:06:10-05:00

By KATE STOBER

Every two years, six emerging artists have the chance many dream of: a one-on-one mentorship with an expert in their field. Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative partners promising talent with world-renowned masters in dance, film, literature, music, theater and visual arts. For a year, the mentor and protégé work, discuss, and learn. The mentorship culminates with the Rolex Arts Weekend, a chance to share new works and discuss arts and culture with a public audience.

This year, LIVE from the NYPL, The New York Public Library's public event series, will host the Weekend, taking place November 10 through 13.

Recently, NYPL sat down with dancer/choreographer Lee Serle and poet Tracy K. Smith, two of this year's protégés, to talk about their experiences and what audiences can look forward to at Rolex Arts Weekend.

What did you feel when you found out you'd be nominated to take part in the Rolex Artists Mentorship and Protégé Initiative?

Lee Serle: I'd been working pretty consistently with a couple of companies in Melbourne, [Australia,] and doing regular shows, so I was quite busy, but I was trying to start doing more of my own work [as a choreographer]. So it came at a good time.

Tracy K. Smith: I'd just finished my most recent book [of poetry], and I had this idea that I wanted to write a book of prose about my mom. It was so different [from what I had written before] but I had that feeling like, this is something I had better do because it's making me so nervous. I'd heard my mentor [Hans Magnus Enzensberger] read a couple years prior, knew that he was a poet but that he did everything else, and I thought, "This is almost like a gift from the heavens - you're going to expand yourself as a writer."

Tell us about working with your mentors, Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Trisha Brown.

TS: Well, we did a lot work via email, and then when we met, we could have a conversation around his ideas. When I was writing in those in-between times, I had this sense of, there is somebody who's waiting to see this, and it's kind of a friend, and I look up to him. It created an interesting kind of place in my mind.

LS: Trisha's got a gentle energy about her and kind of a cheeky sense of humor. It was really great. And we did the same thing - we would just catch up for coffee and have more informal chats. We didn't always sit down and talk about dance and art and our work.

TS: I'm curious, because Magnus and I didn't collaborate together, what is that like? Did you and Trisha choreograph?

LS: We did. I was in the studio with her and her rehearsal director and choreographic assistant, and we got to work on the new piece that Trisha was starting to make. It ranged a lot from just improvising in the studio or setting movements. Trisha would bring in drawings sometimes (she does a lot of drawings), and we would use that as beginnings of ideas of movement. We also drew in the studio.

I remember one rehearsal where Trisha brought in a drawing of a lot of spiral, abstract drawings. We were discussing what we saw in it, and I think it was Trisha who said, "It's like it curls and it curves and it backs up on itself." So we took that really literally and made movements that had a curl and a curve and backed up on itself. We made a phrase of dance with those ideas specifically in mind.

Can you talk a little bit about how the mentorship impacted your work this year?

TS: Well, I guess two things: there was a book that was mostly done but not completely finished when the mentor program started, so I got some really great guidance from Magnus.

I've been working on this memoir, and it's been hard for me to step out of poetry with confidence and write prose. I feel like he's been teaching me how to do that and challenging me to slow down. I got so excited, I produced all this stuff, and he said, "You know what? It's really just about this thing. You can just focus on this." And I didn't want to believe it, but it's really true.

LS: It must be a hard thing - writing about such a personal situation, to have somebody go, "No, you don't need to write about that. That's not important."

TS: Well, I think that's one of the reasons why these lapses where we're not interacting with one another have been really important. I've been able to stop and come to terms with that kind of thing. "Okay, ouch... maybe he's right... that makes a lot of sense... how am I gonna reconfigure my thinking so there's time for all of these things to happen?" Like the five stages of grief [laughs] - whatever that corresponds to in the writerly process. I have the space to make that happen. What about you?

LS: Such a huge array of experiences that I had, it's hard to pinpoint any one specific thing. It was amazing to see a vast volume of Trisha's work. We did some things from the '60s and '70s and some things that we're making now, so getting this broad spectrum of her work was kind of incredible.

I think coming back to the source of where [Trisha's techniques] came from made me fully understand them. I thought that I knew what it was all about, but I only really scratched the surface, so it was amazing to go back to the source and fully understand it.

The rehearsal director and the choreographic assistant joined the company in the 80s, so they have this long history as well, and they gave me so much information about the work. It was really like training again, like almost going back to college and getting to focus on technique again.

I feel like [my choreographic style] has come more in line with what Trisha's is now, which has been great for me because I feel like I've kind of molded the two together.

Tell us what you have planned for the Rolex Arts Weekend.

LS: I originally wanted to be in one of the reading rooms [at the Library], but that wasn't going to work out, so they offered Astor Hall. It's a huge space to fill.

I trialed an idea of the piece in the spring, and I had the audience standing throughout the space in a loose grid. It was really short, experimental - dancing a little bit throughout the audience, having short interactions with people.

It's a fine line when you're interacting with an audience. Mostly you see it in street performance, which often freaks people out. They hate it because it's confronting and embarrassing. I've been trying to figure out how to approach it more sensitively so people don't feel alienated or embarrassed and participate. I'm interested in giving the audience a performative experience for themselves rather than just being the spectator.

So that's where it started. I've got a grid of swivel stools - I think there's 30 - and [the audience] can watch what they want to watch, and then some of the interactions are much more... how do I explain it? I guess an example is the best way. Putting a set of headphones on somebody, and I'll have headphones too, so we're listening to the same piece of music, and then I might do kind of a private dance for you, so you feel like you're on your own, but everybody else can see you, watch, observe your reaction to what's happening.

TS: That's brilliant.

LS: You're setting your poems to music for the Arts Weekend. Have you done that before?

TS: I'm often thinking about music when I'm writing, in terms of the movements a poem might go through and the modulation that I'm interested in. But I've never done it before. There's a poem by each of us, Magnus and me, and there are two singers performing. There will be piano score. I have no idea what it's going to sound like. I still haven't heard what [composer Gregory Spears] is doing. I'll hear it when he performs it.

LS: That's kind of crazy - you're completely relinquishing control and just putting it into their hands.

TS: I'm curious about what he hears and what he wants to draw out.

LS: Makes it an entirely different thing.

Tracy K. Smith and Hans Magnus Enzensberger's Poems Set to Music will be held on Saturday, November 12 at 5pm. Lee Serle's P.O.V. will be performed on Sunday, November 13 at 7pm. Both events will take place at The New York Public Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. Click here for a full schedule.

All Hands on Deck: NYPL Turns to the Crowd to Develop Digital Collections

2011-09-16T10:34:46-04:00

By Vicky Gan, Intern, Strategic Planning Office, The New York Public Library

Crowdsourcing is a loaded term. Since its 2006 debut, the word has burgeoned to encompass commercial ventures, digital galleries, funding platforms, art collaboratives, and myriad other online initiatives. Diverse as they are, though, all crowdsourcing projects have one thing in common: they harness the power of large, undefined groups to accomplish specific tasks. Participants pool their money to support a new company, brainstorm ideas to solve an industrial problem, contribute photos and videos, and tag museum objects. They are connected by time rather than place, interest rather than edict. If two heads are better than one, the conventional wisdom goes, then an online community of millions ought to be the most productive engine of all.

Users are generating that reality every day at The New York Public Library through two landmark crowdsourcing endeavors, What's on the Menu? and Map Rectifier. The former enlists the public in the transcription of historical menus, and the latter allows users to "rectify" historical maps by overlaying them on modern ones. Both projects stand out amid a glut of competitors as refreshingly guilt-free and subliminally educational uses of online time. With every menu transcribed and map rectified, users are supporting research in the humanities.

In the time it takes to deploy an angry bird, a user can identify and transcribe a dish dating back to the mid-nineteenth century. The recipe for the menu project is simple -- click, type, submit, repeat -- and has proven a runaway success, yielding almost half a million plates of Blue Points, porterhouses, croquettes, et al. The average visit to What's on the Menu? is slightly under eight minutes and thirty page clicks long -- an eternity on the web -- and patrons are hungry for more. The initial release of 8,700 digitized menus was provisionally transcribed in just four months. NYPL recently ramped up digitization efforts to meet demand.

"There's some kind of thrill about it," observes Rebecca Federman, project curator and culinary collections librarian at NYPL. "Menus have an everyday nature but are also extraordinary." They are, at least, extraordinarily rare; most restaurants scrap them after each service. Menus are a form of ephemera -- printed materials, such as flyers, posters, and programs, that were not meant to be kept. They reveal the past through its quotidian details and prove, dish by dish, that we are what we eat.

For the transcriber, the collection is a treasure trove of little discoveries -- the antiquated use of "farinaceous" instead of today's "pasta"; the remarkable preponderance of oyster dishes; the revelation that steaks cost twenty-five cents, not twenty-five dollars. For the scholar, it is an invaluable source of historical data. Author William Grimes used the collection to produce a culinary history of New York. Texas A&M marine biologist Glenn Jones scoured seafood menus to study fish populations. What's on the Menu? has also inspired users outside the academic sphere. Chefs Mario Batali and Rich Torrisi are fans of the project, and a fourth-grade class in Texas has been transcribing menus as a typing exercise. By codifying and enhancing digital collections, crowdsourcing spawns new applications for historical information.

NYPL's Geospatial librarian, Matt Knutzen, is excited about crowdsourcing's potential for the map collection. "You can study anything through geography, through a spatial lens," he says. Using NYPL's Map Rectifier, amateur cartographers align old maps with current ones to "create a historical framework for geographical information." The maps convey much more than the locations of roads and landmarks; each layer incorporates multidisciplinary data to illuminate a specific period in a region's development. Demographic data could chart patterns of migration. Nautical data could track changes in a harbor's bathometry. Maps of defunct factories could have real-world implications for environmental remediation. "We're not positioning ourselves to answer those questions," says Knutzen. "We're enabling people to find those answers."

The Map Rectifier has already made a concrete impact in Haiti. In 2010, the Library contributed historical maps and georectification software to the Haiti OpenStreetMap used by earthquake aid workers. Citizen cartographers the world over collaborated to create an open-source map with up-to-date information on Haiti's resources and infrastructure. NYPL added layers of data that helped rescue teams locate victims and coordinate relief efforts. In its way, crowdsourcing helped save lives.

Ben Vershbow sees many more such surprises down the road. Vershbow is the director of NYPL Labs, the Library's experimental digital humanities unit. According to Vershbow, cultural heritage institutions are at last starting to step more boldly into the collaborative web. "After testing the waters on third-party services like Flickr Commons," he says, "we are beginning to see libraries, museums, and other organizations investing in their own tools and communities, and going deeper with particular collections." While enthusiastic about drawing users more directly into library initiatives, he is quick to note that crowdsourcing is not a goal in itself but a "solution to particular sorts of problems," and can often open up a host of new challenges. "In asking for the public's help in extracting the menus data," he says, "we are making an implicit promise to do something interesting and useful with it. That means more investment in technology and in library staff dedicated to overseeing, growing, and explaining the menu database. What it means fundamentally," Vershbow continues, "is re-imagining the very roles of librarians and curators, positioning them not only as custodians of physical collections, but as leaders of online communities."

NYPL Labs staff are already on the hunt for their next "blockbuster" project. They're considering collections to be tagged, transcribed, and curated by the public. They're floating ideas for "maker sites," which would allow users to create new media using items from NYPL's Digital Gallery. They envision, in the distant future, a fully searchable, cross-referenced map of historical information -- an online time machine. Click on a restaurant to pull up its 1902 menu. Pinpoint a teacher who lived on Mott Street. See the shows from the Lyceum Theatre's opening night.

"It's uncharted territory," says Vershbow. And that's what's so thrilling about it.